Potatoes 2011

I had started with potatoes leftover from the kitchen mostly just to play and see what would happen.  They were so fantastic that I really wanted to try to grow some.  And of course in true me fashion wanted to try the weird and unusual that of course (at least at that time for me ) can’t be found in the store.  So for my 2010 Garden I got some of the potato bags from Gardener’s Supply and some actual seed potatoes from a couple places.  Ended up trying Sweet potatoes, Yukon golds, Blue and fingerlings.  We got going VERY late because of the flooding in New England last year but decided to try them any way.  Boy were we glad that we did try them.  While we didn’t get a whole lot we got enough to try and enough to seed for 2011.  They were incredibly buttery by themselves and the blue had an awesome woody taste that I had never had before. 

So 2011 came and learning from last year I was able to keep enough for seed for the Yukon gold, blue and fingerlings, and we even managed to get them into the ground on time.  However, we weren’t able to get the bags back filled on time.  So while I was proud of myself for keeping my own ( I even started my sweet potatoes from an extra one I had) My results weren’t fantastic.  Between the 4 bags that we had going we only got about 8 pounds total.  No where near what we really should have in a perfect world, but better then last year.  All the potatoes were also all on the bottom of the bags.  I think if we had gotten it back filled we may have had better luck. 

The worse part about this year was we left them outside to dry and they all got rained on.  Dried them off and brought them, but unfortunately they did not make it.  This year we didn’t even get as far as trying them.  Now I’m really motivated to get it right next year.   At least this year was better than last year so we're heading in the right direction. 

My niece and my father grabbing the potatoes.  He's like a kid in a candy store. 

Well that's what we managed to pull out of the bags.  Not too bad.  Very excited about the sweet potatoes this year. Top Left blue, top right fingerlings (mine are really big), bottom right yukon gold (some really good ones), and finally sweet potatoes.  

These were our totals.  First year we actually weighed them.  the .16 was the bag we used. 

Winter Garden 2011

So we’re trying the winter garden thing again this year.  Crossing my fingers we get better luck.  Unfortunately we’re not off to a great start.  The tomatoes that I planted dried out and shriveled up into nothing.  The zucchini I planted didn’t do much before it decided it would rather die, and some of my seeds just didn’t sprout and I never made it back to reseed them. 

 Now for the good news, the Hot cherry, cayenne, chocolate, reg & mini chocolate peppers that I planted are doing great.  I have one volunteer tomato plant that is awesome and already has fruit on it.  I wanted to transplant some more plants from the garden, but after winter storm Alfred I don’t think most of what is left outside is very happy right now. 

For he ha’s because we really are switching to wood this year I’m going to try to reseed and see what happens.  I’m going with the idea that worse case is no worse than the current situation.  Maybe we’ll even get some strawberries this year.  I’ve got 4 pots of them set up as an experiment this winter to see what happens. 

I really need to keep in mind that this thing needs to be up and running by the beginning of august.  That’s when I put in the plants that are doing the best right now.  What can I say gardening is an experience that is always evolving. 

Finding homes for them

Finding homes for almost 70 plants inside is no easy task.  This year we plan on burning wood so I’ve lost the top of the wood stove which housed quite a few of my plants last year.  We’ve also expanded our winter garden this year.  We did however manage to get quite a few hooks put up so that I can finally hang plants in front of the windows this year.  That has helped tremendously.  Now it’s just finding the time to finish and keep up on the watering.  I’m finding that a lot of them are lot more thirsty now that they are inside then they were on the outside.  I think I have finally gotten catch up in the watering.  Now the trick is to stay on top of it.  I’ve managed to make the family room pretty cozy which is super nice.  It will be fun to sit around this winter surrounded by green fun. 

Top of the 6 ft table that is completely full

Floor of the table

There's a lot of them.  And for the most part they have all found homes.  I totally have a jungle in my house.  There's also a crazy variety of plants in this collection.  Never really appreciated how much I have until it's all crammed together in one tiny spot.  Some think it's crazy, but it's my craziness and I wouldn't have it any other way. 

Pasta Ponza ! ! ! !

So I found a recipe from Everyday Italian that I loved the way it looked and wanted to try it.  The problem was that my grocery store doesn’t carry different colors of tomatoes.  Figuring they were out there I went on a search and ultimately found some very cool new seed places.  Last year I tried growing them and they didn’t quite do as well as I was hoping and we never got enough to really do anything with.  I did only have 1 plant of each.  I did the black, white, orange, and yellow cherries.  This year I got some black cherry seeds from a friend and tried the other colors again.  Well even with the damage from Irene I was able to finally get enough to try out the recipe. 

Totally worth it.  So excited to know that not only can I grow the different tomatoes, but they do taste way better than what’s in the stores and the selection is so much better.  The pasta dish was fantastic and super easy to put together.  I made it in my Demarle at Home products which made clean up a total breeze.  I think we ate it for about a week and I still wanted it.  Making me want to expand what I can do with what’s in my garden.  Which I guess is as good a reason as ever to really evaluate where I’m at.

Update: So knowing that this has sat for a while it's time to let everyone know that the new and improved can be found over at www.gardeningfoodies.com I've learned a lot over the years and I'm super excited to share that with everyone.  So come check us out and see what we now have in store for you.  A lot of food, a little bit of bon COOK business and a sprinkling of gardening to bring everything together.  Or just check out our growing community over at www.gardeningfoodies.com/fbgroup Can't wait to see you there and catch up.



Fresh Cherry Tomatoes from the garden before cooking



After cooking with bread crumbs on top







Finished Product

Finished Product

Time to start the jungle

It’s that time of year again.  Once we hit the middle of October as the temperatures decided to start dipping into the low 40’s we decided to grab all of our tropical plants and make sure they were inside.  I believe the forecast was for 38 degrees when we decided to grab everything.  With all the tax deadlines getting extended for those of us up in the northeast tax season hasn’t gone the way it usually has.  So instead of being able to concentrate on cleaning up at home I’ve been doing double duty still.  At least we had an extra table that we could use.  This meant that like Irene all the plants just got piled up so that at least they were inside before the supper cold actually hit. 

I’m so glad that I actually did bring them in because the lights frosts started and I’m pretty sure that most of my plants would not have liked that very much; especially seeing as how most of them have already gotten pretty mad at me for leaving them outside in the 50 degree weather.  Now comes the fun task of cleaning them all up, trimming them all back and fining a nice home for them for the winter. 

Welcome to the start of my jungle.

Fresh Salsa ! ! ! !

 So on my kick of finding out how much better things from my garden taste I decided to try a two for one experiment.  I have a friend who created this awesome salsa recipe that we’ve been able to duplicate and with our salsa marker is a breeze to put together.  I have another friend though that doesn’t like actual onion, but likes the taste of onion (go figure).  So taking my fresh plum tomatoes, some fresh cherry tomatoes (with the different colors) and a green pepper from a friend’s garden, some green onions from my garden, and a jalapeno (from the garden) we tried to make it.  You would never guess how much of a difference it makes to have the real onion.  My friend loved it, but the rest of us thought it was missing something.  I will say though it was kinda cool to know that most of the ingredients came from the garden. 

So after that little experiment went pretty well I decided to try the hot version with some of my hot cherries (it’s normally made with a habanero).  The hot cherries seem to do well inside during the winter so in theory I would be able to get them, which is especially awesome because the habaneros are becoming harder and harder to find in our grocery stores.  I didn’t personally eat it as it is way too hot for me (hot just isn't my thing), but the reviews were great.  The idea of having fresh salsa in winter that could potentially come from our little three tier is pretty cool.  Guess I need to work on getting some plum tomatoes worked into the mix. 

We wanted to try to can some this year, but that didn’t happen.  So maybe next year when we’re done with the projects I’ll be able to try my hand at it. 

Consequences of the weather

Wow is all I can say about the weather that we’ve been having in New England.  Hurricane Irene knocked out southeastern CT for about a solid week.  This is turn resulted in all the tax return deadlines to be extended until the end of October.  Normally all deadlines are done by October 15^th.  Which usually gives me plenty of time to clean up and get things all set.  Oh and to get Halloween all set.  With the tax deadlines all getting extended this has been the most insane October I can ever remember. 

Then as if the month wasn’t bad enough as we’re decorating a hall for a Halloween party the rain that’s coming down decides to change over to snow.  This is snow which wasn’t even supposed to start until Midnight.  By the time we had finished we already had like an inch on the cars.  And while it’s only October we already had out first winter storm with a name.  Our area of the state didn’t get hit nearly as hard as other parts.  When you look at the outage map it’s almost as if the line from Irene stayed put and the state just reversed.  I feel bad for the people that are getting hit a second time, but not so bad for the people who were fine for Irene and are just now experiencing this.  So besides the crazy month I am now officially making being prepared a much bigger priority.  As soon as I down load some pictures I’m sure I’ll have some to post. 

Here’s hoping for a quiet November so we can all catch up.